Editing Clara Collet (section)

== Documenting women's work ==
[[File:Booth map of Whitechapel.jpg|thumb|right|Booth's 1889 [[poverty map]] showing [[Whitechapel]] in the London East End. The red areas are "well-to-do" and black areas are the "lowest class...occasional labourers, street sellers, loafers, criminals and semi-criminals".]]

After completion of her master's degree she worked for [[Charles Booth (philanthropist)|Charles Booth]] helping in his great investigative work on the conditions prevailing in late nineteenth century London. To this end she took up residency in the [[East End of London|East End]] during the autumn of 1888. She was working on a chapter on women's work in Booth's survey ''[[Life and Labour of the People of London]]''.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}}

Booth had planned for a chapter on women's work in his survey. In 1887 [[Alice Stopford Green]] started the investigation on women's work and wages, but in November 1888 she left Booth's project. Booth asked [[Beatrice Webb]] if she could complete the women's work study by March 1889. Webb was working on the study of the Jewish community, which had to be completed in February. Records show that Collet started work on the women's work survey in late November. It is not documented how Collet was recruited to Booth's team. Webb and Collet had a mutual friend, [[Eleanor Marx]], and Collet had in 1887 attended the Toynbee Hall conference on women's work and wages, which had also been attended by Booth.<ref>{{cite book |title=Mr Charles Booth's Inquiry: Life and Labour of the People in London, Reconsidered |last= O'Day|first= Rosemary|year=1993 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn= 9781441134431 |page=83 }}</ref> Collet was formally employed by Booth in late 1888 and took over Green's study of women's work in the [[East End of London]] and contributed to [[Graham Balfour]]'s study of [[Battersea|Battersea Street]]. In 1890 she studied the [[Ashby-de-la-Zouch]] [[workhouse]] for Booth's work on the [[Poor Law Unions]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Mr Charles Booth's Inquiry: Life and Labour of the People in London, Reconsidered |last= O'Day|first= Rosemary|year=1993 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn= 9781441134431 |page=84 }}</ref>

In her diaries Collet recorded that "this investigative work has many drawbacks... I would give it up and will give it up whenever I see a chance of earning a certain £60 even by lectures on economics". While working for Booth she coached girls and occasionally stood in for [[Henry Higgs]] to give lectures on economics at [[Toynbee Hall]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Mr Charles Booth's Inquiry: Life and Labour of the People in London, Reconsidered |last= O'Day|first= Rosemary|year=1993 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn= 9781441134431 |page=84 }}</ref> Collet ended her employment with Booth in 1892. She remained close to Booth and her former colleagues. In 1904 she and her former colleagues attended Booth's celebratory dinner in 1904. In 1931 she contributed data on domestic service to Hubert Llewellyn Smith's ''New Survey of London Life and Labour''.<ref>{{cite book |title=Mr Charles Booth's Inquiry: Life and Labour of the People in London, Reconsidered |last= O'Day|first= Rosemary|year=1993 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn= 9781441134431 |page=85 }}</ref>